- Joined
- Jan 7, 2020
Exotic weapons finally get their actual details here. You can't add weapon mods (without techy) or you special ammunition with any of these.
Air pistol: A paintball gun. Can shoot acid paintballs. Don't do any damage, but automatically reduce armor if you hit. Potentially useful in reducing super heavy armor. The description down here says "Medium pistol", the description in character creation says "Very Heavy Pistol". Not sure which it is supposed to be, which is annoying since medium pistols can shoot twice a turn and it isn't all together clear what this gun's rate of fire should be. You can mix it with rubber bullets for non-lethal victories.
Battleglove: Cyberarm for people who arn't cyborgs. $1000 and no humanity cost, but has one less slot than a cyborg arm. Is kind of pointless. Since the weapons got standardized, most cyberarm weapons are just concealable version of normal weapons. And battlegloves arn't concealable. I guess you could use these to never have to reload, and maybe have extra grenade, but I really wouldn't prioritize the equipment.
Constitutional Arms Hurricane Assault Weapon: $5000, requires 11+ BOD, can't make aim shots, and has the equivalent to a free drum magazine but takes two turns to reload. It can attack twice in one turn basically doing twice the damage of a normal shotgun, but presumably can't use fancy bullets. It doesn't say what you can use, but slugs and shot sounds reasonable. Average damage of 35 if you can hit two slugs , 21 AOE with both shots, but both are reduced by armor X2 so they arn't as impressive as they sound. Average of 14 against 11 armor dudes with slugs, which is pretty decent considering you have twice the armor removal. Higher than a grenade but lower than a missile launcher or full full auto from an assault rifle. Requirements are kind of silly given said weapons cost a tenth of this and don't require being superhuman to use.
Dartgun: A bow with a clip basically. Probably why ammo for biotoxen and sleep where available in "arrow". Bows explicitly never need to reload making the magazine a downgrade, but it lets you use your handgun proficiency with this weapon so it isn't a total loss.
Flamethrower: Incendiary shotgun mechanically. That is their commentary, not mine. As such its range sucks, but it effectively uses the best ammunition and doubles the damage they take if they ignore the fire that is engulfing them. No critical damage though, so don't try using it against heavier armor. Uses a different skill and has the double fire effect compared to just using a shotgun with incendiary shells, but its effective range is 6m so you're probably going to use this as a backup weapon at most. 3d6 isn't super reliable, armor 11 will eat the attack 60% of the time. Its definitly something that would be hard to use effectively in practice.
Kendachi Mono-Tree: FINES NIPON STEEL katana with a light attachment because if you're using this you're already full weeb. Vibrates to ignore all armor under 11, so effectively +5 damage on the first hit with a lower bonus as you cut away at their armor. Since it only work on armor under 11 you'll have to actually hit them first. Average damage against 11 armor is 9, same as a normal Very Heavy melee weapon. Average damage against 10 armor is 14, since you're now hitting them for a naked 4d6. A bit better than grenade level at this armor, you could probably do better if you can make headshots with it reliably. Cost $5000 and your dignity.
Malorian Arms 3516: A fancy pistol that does 5d6 and comes with a smartgun attachment. VHP's can't be concealed and do less damage than long guns, so their only real purpose is for people who filled up their pistol skill to do some real damage in a firefight. This basically gives you the damage of a shotgunslug or single shot assault rifle, but can't have any additional attachments or presumably special ammo. You can use it one hand if one of your arms gets blown off, and could presumably use it as a backup weapon if a bad guy gets close to your sniper, but at $10,000 its not really worth the price tag.
Microwaver: Like the EMP grenade, except cheaper. An "I Win!" button on dudes with unsheilded cyberlimbs, useless against people without them. How powerful these are is thus entirely up to the GM.
Militech "Cowboy" U-56 grenade launcher: The grenade launcher version of the fancy shotgun, with all the same downsides in return for a ROF of 2. Can explicitly use all special grenades. Average of 21 damage against armor 11 dudes if you hit with both grenades (and as I said earlier, the rules seem to say that explosive weapons always hit), its one of the few things that can beat out full auto fire/missile launchers in damage per turn. The fact you only get to shoot half the time if you are using this gun lowers your average DPT a bit, but you should be able to kill most non-bosses before needing to reload. $5000, great for the high-end death machine you need to be to use this.
Rhinemetall EMG-86 Railgun: An "Assault rifle" with basically all the assault rifle features striped out. 4 bullets per magazine, no auto fire, no aim fire, takes two turns to reload and a bod of 11 to handle, in return it has the same armor ignoring effect as the katana. Does 17 damage on targets with armor 10 or less, slightly less than a full auto burst from a normal machine gun at the same level but more than a single grenade. $5000, OK but not great.
Shrieker: Makes a loud noise that causes ear damage (The thing from Flashbangs that kill mobility) to anyone who doesn't have ear protection and fails a check. Doesn't say they don't receive the critical damage like normal, so it might do a little bit of damage in addition to forcing them to only move every other turn. Its cheaper than spamming flashbangs at $500 with a rechargeable ammunition.
Stun Buton: Melee version of rubber bullets. $100 to beat people up and not kill them.
Stun Gun: Heavy pistol with rubber bullets. Only real change is it has rechargeable bullets I guess.
Tsunami Arms Helix: Autofire only assault rifle. Same downside and price as the railgun and shotgun (bod 11, $5000, two turn reload), but in return does 2d6*5 damage if you can manage to beat the DV by 5. Average of 24 against 11 armor if you can manage that, effectively a 10d6 weapon stronger than anything else in the game (minus headshots). Reloading reduces your DPT if anything manages to survive two hits from this beast.
I'm having fun with the guns, so lets revisit some of the earlier things I skipped over now that we know more about them.
-Solo's extra damage ability is more broken than I thought. +4 starting damage is actually pretty great. It also lets you get through armor more, and at max level basically adds 50% of the average damage to the strongest attacks possible and lets you totally ignore the average armor.
Medium Pistol: Only really useful against non-armored targets. Two hits at 2d6 means normal SP11 armor is going to eat you alive. Your bullets will bounce off their head. Its something your supposed to sneak in and hit someone who's in civvies.
Heavy Pistol: 3d6 version of the Medium Pistol. Strictly better, but you're still doing 2 damage per turn average against SP11 targets until their armor gets down. You arn't going to kill someone in armor with it even if you make every headshot. Effectively grenade level against naked people, and the strongest concealable gun (equivalent to SMGs full hit) in that situation. Basically just something you can use to assassinate someone.
Very Heavy Pistol: The pistoleer's warfighter. 4d6 no concealability. 3.3 damage through 11SP, but you'll at least be able to reduce the armor with each shot (and maybe set them on fire) most of the time. You can probably win a firefight with this if you're a solo or packing incendiary bullets.
SMG: The concealable full-auto. Grenade level damage if you can beat the DV by 3 reliably, at 10.25 past SP11. You should probably use this instead of handguns if you care about pure power.
Heavy SMG: A non-concealable SMG. Slightly better DPT thanks to having an extra autofire before reload. Also has more damage per single shot if you find literally any reason to not full auto (you won't). I'd probably pick the SMG or assault rifle that use the same skill, but this is a perfectly reasonable choice for a full auto character.
All of the above are one handed weapons, so its perfectly possible by the rules to have one SMG in each hand and not bother with reloading until everything is dead.
Shotgun: The first of the 5d6, tailored to close fighting. 6.5 average damage against SP11 targets, average 13 on headshots. 3d6 ranged option is there, but like I said in the heavy pistol, it won't do anything against anyone in armor. Wierdly low ammo count. Usable, but not auto
.
Assault Rifle: Can either be used as a 5d6 weapon or a full auto weapon (look above for how the damage works with a 14 skill starting character). You only get two full auto bursts per reloading, but you can get a couple of 5d6 shots in if you need to finish someone off before that since you have a wonky 25 round magazine. Missile Launcher tier if you're good with full auto, you'll melt enemies compared to the other weapons. Everyone who wants to kill someone and doesn't need to do it sneakily will probably use these. 2d6*4 isn't a joke if you can manage it.
Sniper Rifle: Shotgun with a different range table. Your only real option for hitting things past 200m, a skilled character can reasonably make a 200-400 meter shot (DV 17, so a 14 starting character gets a 70% chance of hitting) with an OK chance of hitting a 400-800 meter shot (DV20, 30%). You won't usually kill someone in one shot even if they're naked if you roll damage for it, so be sure to double tap.
Bow/Crossbow: Very heavy pistol that doesn't need to be reloaded and take two hands. Not really useful unless you take advantage of the expensive special arrows, but if you do you can do grenade tier armor ignoring damage or cheesy 1 hit KO things.
Grenade launcher: 6d6 damage, explosive with a variety of super special options. Can get through cover pretty well. With the explosive rules as they are/if you really can't miss with explosives, they're a pretty good option for non combat characters to contribute to the fight. They can bypass armor reasonably well but you won't really be able to spam them, most people will probably just have a couple shots on their gun or in their arms to either get past some cover or deal some status effects.
Missile Launcher: Tied with a full Assault rifle burst for damage, but never miss (with that same "with the explosive rules as written condition). 8d6, you'll be able to bypass any armor but probably not kill everyone in one hit. Reloading halves your DPT by default, but you can buy a drum magazine that triples how many rockets you have before reload for a fairly trivial $500. Tied with Assault Rifle for the strongest base weapon, stronger if you can't hit well but weaker if you can somehow always hit for max damage with the assault rifle and also have special ammo.
The above two are explosives. As I noted before, the rules state that you aim for the center of a 10X10 square and everyone in that square gets hit. If you miss, the GM can move the explosive to a second location in that 10X10 square...which will be at most 4M away from your 10 meter explosive. So as written you'll never miss an area target, meaning low skilled characters can throw as many explosives as they want with only the fear of getting their allies caught in the flames. Downside is REF8+ characters can still dodge the explosives, so if you rely on that and run into a cyborged up Ninja you're going to be screwed since he can just dodge everything because you have no skill.
Critical damage goes up with the more dice you roll.
2d6 has a 2% chance of doing critical damage (One of the two weaknesses of autofire)(+0.1 damage average)
3d6 has a 7% chance (+0.35)
4d6 has a 13% chance(+0.65)
5d6 has a 19% chance(+0.95)
6d6 has a 26% chance(+1.3)
8d6 has a 40%chance(+2)
These arn't incredibly reliable, but the status effects can be pretty helpful. Its not really enough to make autofire less powerful. I'll mostly ignore this just to make math easier later.
A weakness shared by autofire and explosives is the inability to make headshots. Lets look at some scenarios to see how this can effect damage:
SC has 14 base stats, against a standard 11SP opponent in the gun's optimal range.
Starting character 5d6 (No-headshot): Chance to hit: 91%. Hit damage (5d6-11 min 0) average 6.56. Average damage per shot 5.96.
Starting character 5d6(Headshot): Chance to hit: 30%. Hit damage (5d6-11 min 0 *2) average 13.12. Average damage per shot 3.93
SC+Scope+Smartgun+ExcellentQuality+COCAIN(no headshot): Chance to hit 94%, average damage per shot 6.1
SC+Scope+Smartgun+ExcellentQuality+COCAIN (headshot): Chance to hit 70%. Average damage per shot 9.18
As expected, high skill characters will be able to make more headdshots and thus do more damage. My minmaxed starting character with every advantage I could think of is ...almost able to match the autofire of a submachine gun. Of course this way the SP is a major factor, since its essentially eating up double its points in damage. Once a character's armor is Clothing Damaged, this becomes:
SC NHS: Average 5d6 17.5, 15.92 per shot
SC HS: Average 5d6*2 36, 10.5 PS
SC+Things NHS: 16.45
SC+Things HS: 31.5
Now that is a reasonable amount of damage! An assault rifle's full blast will do 28 ignoring miss chance, against low armored targets you're basically doing 10d6. Single shot long arms should be reasonably viable, once you get good enough with the weapon to pop some heads. At the very least you'll save money on bullets. For comparison:
13 DV, 11SP
18-4
SC AR: 0(9%), 2d6 (1%), 2d6*2(10%), 2d6*3(10%) 2d6*4(70%). Damage per attack 13.4
SC AR+COCAIN+EC+SG: 0(5%), 2d6(1%), 2d6*2(1%) 2d6*3(1%) 2d6*4 (92%). Damage per attack 15.9
SC SMG: 0(9%), 2d6(1%), 2d6*2(10%), 2d6*3(80%). Damage Per attack 8.58
SC SMG+Stuff: 0(5%), 2d6(1%), 2d6*2(1%) 2d6*3(93%). Damage per attack 9.57
13DV, 0SP
SC AR: Same chances, damage is 23.17
SCAR+ Things: Same chances, damage is 26.18
SC SMG: DPA 18.27
SC SMG+Things: DPA 19.74
Finally, explosives! Like I said, if they follow the "Hit or miss = I guess they never miss huh?" then they just do straight up damage. So they'll do more than their equivalent autofire when accuracy is taken into account.
SP11
Grenade: 10
Missile: 17
SP0:
Grenade: 21
Missile: 28
Now there is a chance to miss, if you're fighting a cyborg ninja who can dodge bullets. I'll use the 14 for their character, and a 7 for the attacker to represent someone who had a dump stat. You now have a 6% chance to actually hit them with your explosive (You roll a 8, they roll a 1, you roll a 9 they roll a 1 or 2, you roll a 10 they roll a 1, 2, 3, mostly ignoring crits that would probably not insubstantially increase your score). Now average damage is:
SP11:
Grenade: 0.6
Missile: 1.02
So don't forget to dodge those missiles kids!
OK, away from numbers and back to the book. Armor gets brought up again, noting is really new but the fluffy descriptions. I should probably point out here that since cover takes damage like its unarmored, most if it is going to get torn up by any sort of attack. Two average slugs are going to take out the HP of a concrete cover, so if everyone focuses fire on one dude they're going to be sitting ducks soon enough. This makes shields basically a one-attack blocker that doesn't work on explosives, if you bring enough and pair with an SMG you'd be a pretty effective tank (unless you get shot at twice before you can replace it). SP11 is cheap and has no penalty so everyone will use it. Metalgear is expensive and makes you almost act like you got hit by a flashbang while you're wearing it, but you'll be really hard to kill if you do.
After that is a mostly fluffy equipment list. Some of these things can do the same thing some cyberwear does, I'm not sure why you'd put a bug detector in your arm when you can just put it in your hand.
We FINALLY get what a cyrotank is. That special thing that only Medtechs can use, and have to put points towards. Cyropumps are emergency tools that put you in stasis so you stop making death checks, but they're fragile enough that you'll have to do it after the bad guys stop shooting at you. Basically keep you from dying, so they're useful if you happen to be dying. Cyrotank are healing pods that make you heal for double what you normally would. Usually its less quick than making the expensive medicines, but its faster than just waiting.
There are two Linear frames that raise your BOD like the cybearwear do, but don't raise your health and don't require a minimum BOD like the cyberwear. Mostly to make you stronk.
Smartglasses act like battle gloves, but for eyes, with two eye slots. Its better than getting cybereyes in most cases since you just have to buy one upgrade to count as "paired". Can act like either a scope or thermal scope, letting you do either of the tricks above.
Remember when I said light melee weapons where useless? Well I was right, but you can add a $500 biotoxin to them to make them do 3d6 ignore armor for 30 minutes. Add this to your bayonet and you can deal 21 damage bypassing armor thanks to your weapon attacking twice. Significant step up from the biogrenade, if you're a melee dude. Still useless if you arn't specked for stabbing people. Poison again does the same thing but less for cheaper.
A fashion page has the price per article of clothing for each fashion design, including jewelry, "mirroshades", contact lenses, and glasses. Tops out at $50,000 for high-end jewelry, presumably meant to be stolen and resold.
Street drugs and cyberwear get reprinted. Just about everything from Netrunner gets reprinted.
Lifestyle and Housing. Another thing that we talked about at the beginning of the game! If you don't pay for food you die. $100 a month for the cheapest meal plan, if you spend that you don't die. Upgrades to that are mostly for flavor (bah dum dish!), but mechanically allow you to get better food and go to entertainment without having to spend additional money passed what you already paid. Someone on a kibble diet can go to a World Class Restaurant, but they'd have to drop $500. Someone on a Real Food lifestyle could go to said restaurant once a month for free.
Housing more directly effects you stats. Sleep 6 hours or you get tired and -2 to E V E R Y T H I N G. If too many people are loaded into your sleeping space, -2 to to E V E R Y T H I N G. If you sleep on the streets -2 to E V E R Y T H I N G unless you pass a roll, sleep outside and its -2 to to everything unless you or someone else passes a roll.
Basically not living in a building sucks and is dangerous. Cube hotels are the cheapest you can stay at for no penalty, $500 a month. Up from that its mostly flavor, though the more expensive ones explicitly have more security giving the GM less of an excuse to take stuff from you than if you slept in an alleyway. The top ones also give you some wealthy contacts. There is a price to buy, if you want to own your own place instead of getting charged monthly for it. Then you can set up your laser grids and crushing floors. Corpo's starting house can comfortably fit 3 people without penalty. Starting cargo container can fit 2. One person is going to have to sleep on the floor or share a bed.
Next is a guide for making money. Jobs get paid by the danger level, per person, though the game notes that these are just "best case" guidelines.
As a reminder Fixes can get more money for jobs, so you can take on a dangerous job for $4,000 each with a Level 10 fixer. Not bad!
Second way is the "hustle". Basically a passive payment that you get if you do nothing for a week (like if your waiting for someone to heal, make an item, or do something else that takes a lot of time). Every class gets their own job list with a random payment based off of your rank (starting characters are at the top-end of the lowest rank). Tops out around 800 for a lucky roll for a high skill player, bottoms out at 0 for an unlucky roll in the lowest rank. Its probably enough to pay the food and housing bills, but if you're doing that you won't be able to get much extra equipment.
Last is selling, which is tied into buying and selling. You can buy items up to $100 without needing a fixer or night market. Higher than that, you do. It looks like you can buy it at the same price you can sell it for, so a patient fixer could make some cash by Haggling. Like I thought you can probably make a little money with a fixer/tech team, if you have enough dice to pass the checks and enough time to make an expensive item.
Air pistol: A paintball gun. Can shoot acid paintballs. Don't do any damage, but automatically reduce armor if you hit. Potentially useful in reducing super heavy armor. The description down here says "Medium pistol", the description in character creation says "Very Heavy Pistol". Not sure which it is supposed to be, which is annoying since medium pistols can shoot twice a turn and it isn't all together clear what this gun's rate of fire should be. You can mix it with rubber bullets for non-lethal victories.
Battleglove: Cyberarm for people who arn't cyborgs. $1000 and no humanity cost, but has one less slot than a cyborg arm. Is kind of pointless. Since the weapons got standardized, most cyberarm weapons are just concealable version of normal weapons. And battlegloves arn't concealable. I guess you could use these to never have to reload, and maybe have extra grenade, but I really wouldn't prioritize the equipment.
Constitutional Arms Hurricane Assault Weapon: $5000, requires 11+ BOD, can't make aim shots, and has the equivalent to a free drum magazine but takes two turns to reload. It can attack twice in one turn basically doing twice the damage of a normal shotgun, but presumably can't use fancy bullets. It doesn't say what you can use, but slugs and shot sounds reasonable. Average damage of 35 if you can hit two slugs , 21 AOE with both shots, but both are reduced by armor X2 so they arn't as impressive as they sound. Average of 14 against 11 armor dudes with slugs, which is pretty decent considering you have twice the armor removal. Higher than a grenade but lower than a missile launcher or full full auto from an assault rifle. Requirements are kind of silly given said weapons cost a tenth of this and don't require being superhuman to use.
Dartgun: A bow with a clip basically. Probably why ammo for biotoxen and sleep where available in "arrow". Bows explicitly never need to reload making the magazine a downgrade, but it lets you use your handgun proficiency with this weapon so it isn't a total loss.
Flamethrower: Incendiary shotgun mechanically. That is their commentary, not mine. As such its range sucks, but it effectively uses the best ammunition and doubles the damage they take if they ignore the fire that is engulfing them. No critical damage though, so don't try using it against heavier armor. Uses a different skill and has the double fire effect compared to just using a shotgun with incendiary shells, but its effective range is 6m so you're probably going to use this as a backup weapon at most. 3d6 isn't super reliable, armor 11 will eat the attack 60% of the time. Its definitly something that would be hard to use effectively in practice.
Kendachi Mono-Tree: FINES NIPON STEEL katana with a light attachment because if you're using this you're already full weeb. Vibrates to ignore all armor under 11, so effectively +5 damage on the first hit with a lower bonus as you cut away at their armor. Since it only work on armor under 11 you'll have to actually hit them first. Average damage against 11 armor is 9, same as a normal Very Heavy melee weapon. Average damage against 10 armor is 14, since you're now hitting them for a naked 4d6. A bit better than grenade level at this armor, you could probably do better if you can make headshots with it reliably. Cost $5000 and your dignity.
Malorian Arms 3516: A fancy pistol that does 5d6 and comes with a smartgun attachment. VHP's can't be concealed and do less damage than long guns, so their only real purpose is for people who filled up their pistol skill to do some real damage in a firefight. This basically gives you the damage of a shotgunslug or single shot assault rifle, but can't have any additional attachments or presumably special ammo. You can use it one hand if one of your arms gets blown off, and could presumably use it as a backup weapon if a bad guy gets close to your sniper, but at $10,000 its not really worth the price tag.
Microwaver: Like the EMP grenade, except cheaper. An "I Win!" button on dudes with unsheilded cyberlimbs, useless against people without them. How powerful these are is thus entirely up to the GM.
Militech "Cowboy" U-56 grenade launcher: The grenade launcher version of the fancy shotgun, with all the same downsides in return for a ROF of 2. Can explicitly use all special grenades. Average of 21 damage against armor 11 dudes if you hit with both grenades (and as I said earlier, the rules seem to say that explosive weapons always hit), its one of the few things that can beat out full auto fire/missile launchers in damage per turn. The fact you only get to shoot half the time if you are using this gun lowers your average DPT a bit, but you should be able to kill most non-bosses before needing to reload. $5000, great for the high-end death machine you need to be to use this.
Rhinemetall EMG-86 Railgun: An "Assault rifle" with basically all the assault rifle features striped out. 4 bullets per magazine, no auto fire, no aim fire, takes two turns to reload and a bod of 11 to handle, in return it has the same armor ignoring effect as the katana. Does 17 damage on targets with armor 10 or less, slightly less than a full auto burst from a normal machine gun at the same level but more than a single grenade. $5000, OK but not great.
Shrieker: Makes a loud noise that causes ear damage (The thing from Flashbangs that kill mobility) to anyone who doesn't have ear protection and fails a check. Doesn't say they don't receive the critical damage like normal, so it might do a little bit of damage in addition to forcing them to only move every other turn. Its cheaper than spamming flashbangs at $500 with a rechargeable ammunition.
Stun Buton: Melee version of rubber bullets. $100 to beat people up and not kill them.
Stun Gun: Heavy pistol with rubber bullets. Only real change is it has rechargeable bullets I guess.
Tsunami Arms Helix: Autofire only assault rifle. Same downside and price as the railgun and shotgun (bod 11, $5000, two turn reload), but in return does 2d6*5 damage if you can manage to beat the DV by 5. Average of 24 against 11 armor if you can manage that, effectively a 10d6 weapon stronger than anything else in the game (minus headshots). Reloading reduces your DPT if anything manages to survive two hits from this beast.
I'm having fun with the guns, so lets revisit some of the earlier things I skipped over now that we know more about them.
-Solo's extra damage ability is more broken than I thought. +4 starting damage is actually pretty great. It also lets you get through armor more, and at max level basically adds 50% of the average damage to the strongest attacks possible and lets you totally ignore the average armor.
Medium Pistol: Only really useful against non-armored targets. Two hits at 2d6 means normal SP11 armor is going to eat you alive. Your bullets will bounce off their head. Its something your supposed to sneak in and hit someone who's in civvies.
Heavy Pistol: 3d6 version of the Medium Pistol. Strictly better, but you're still doing 2 damage per turn average against SP11 targets until their armor gets down. You arn't going to kill someone in armor with it even if you make every headshot. Effectively grenade level against naked people, and the strongest concealable gun (equivalent to SMGs full hit) in that situation. Basically just something you can use to assassinate someone.
Very Heavy Pistol: The pistoleer's warfighter. 4d6 no concealability. 3.3 damage through 11SP, but you'll at least be able to reduce the armor with each shot (and maybe set them on fire) most of the time. You can probably win a firefight with this if you're a solo or packing incendiary bullets.
SMG: The concealable full-auto. Grenade level damage if you can beat the DV by 3 reliably, at 10.25 past SP11. You should probably use this instead of handguns if you care about pure power.
Heavy SMG: A non-concealable SMG. Slightly better DPT thanks to having an extra autofire before reload. Also has more damage per single shot if you find literally any reason to not full auto (you won't). I'd probably pick the SMG or assault rifle that use the same skill, but this is a perfectly reasonable choice for a full auto character.
All of the above are one handed weapons, so its perfectly possible by the rules to have one SMG in each hand and not bother with reloading until everything is dead.
Shotgun: The first of the 5d6, tailored to close fighting. 6.5 average damage against SP11 targets, average 13 on headshots. 3d6 ranged option is there, but like I said in the heavy pistol, it won't do anything against anyone in armor. Wierdly low ammo count. Usable, but not auto
.Assault Rifle: Can either be used as a 5d6 weapon or a full auto weapon (look above for how the damage works with a 14 skill starting character). You only get two full auto bursts per reloading, but you can get a couple of 5d6 shots in if you need to finish someone off before that since you have a wonky 25 round magazine. Missile Launcher tier if you're good with full auto, you'll melt enemies compared to the other weapons. Everyone who wants to kill someone and doesn't need to do it sneakily will probably use these. 2d6*4 isn't a joke if you can manage it.
Sniper Rifle: Shotgun with a different range table. Your only real option for hitting things past 200m, a skilled character can reasonably make a 200-400 meter shot (DV 17, so a 14 starting character gets a 70% chance of hitting) with an OK chance of hitting a 400-800 meter shot (DV20, 30%). You won't usually kill someone in one shot even if they're naked if you roll damage for it, so be sure to double tap.
Bow/Crossbow: Very heavy pistol that doesn't need to be reloaded and take two hands. Not really useful unless you take advantage of the expensive special arrows, but if you do you can do grenade tier armor ignoring damage or cheesy 1 hit KO things.
Grenade launcher: 6d6 damage, explosive with a variety of super special options. Can get through cover pretty well. With the explosive rules as they are/if you really can't miss with explosives, they're a pretty good option for non combat characters to contribute to the fight. They can bypass armor reasonably well but you won't really be able to spam them, most people will probably just have a couple shots on their gun or in their arms to either get past some cover or deal some status effects.
Missile Launcher: Tied with a full Assault rifle burst for damage, but never miss (with that same "with the explosive rules as written condition). 8d6, you'll be able to bypass any armor but probably not kill everyone in one hit. Reloading halves your DPT by default, but you can buy a drum magazine that triples how many rockets you have before reload for a fairly trivial $500. Tied with Assault Rifle for the strongest base weapon, stronger if you can't hit well but weaker if you can somehow always hit for max damage with the assault rifle and also have special ammo.
The above two are explosives. As I noted before, the rules state that you aim for the center of a 10X10 square and everyone in that square gets hit. If you miss, the GM can move the explosive to a second location in that 10X10 square...which will be at most 4M away from your 10 meter explosive. So as written you'll never miss an area target, meaning low skilled characters can throw as many explosives as they want with only the fear of getting their allies caught in the flames. Downside is REF8+ characters can still dodge the explosives, so if you rely on that and run into a cyborged up Ninja you're going to be screwed since he can just dodge everything because you have no skill.
Critical damage goes up with the more dice you roll.
2d6 has a 2% chance of doing critical damage (One of the two weaknesses of autofire)(+0.1 damage average)
3d6 has a 7% chance (+0.35)
4d6 has a 13% chance(+0.65)
5d6 has a 19% chance(+0.95)
6d6 has a 26% chance(+1.3)
8d6 has a 40%chance(+2)
These arn't incredibly reliable, but the status effects can be pretty helpful. Its not really enough to make autofire less powerful. I'll mostly ignore this just to make math easier later.
A weakness shared by autofire and explosives is the inability to make headshots. Lets look at some scenarios to see how this can effect damage:
SC has 14 base stats, against a standard 11SP opponent in the gun's optimal range.
Starting character 5d6 (No-headshot): Chance to hit: 91%. Hit damage (5d6-11 min 0) average 6.56. Average damage per shot 5.96.
Starting character 5d6(Headshot): Chance to hit: 30%. Hit damage (5d6-11 min 0 *2) average 13.12. Average damage per shot 3.93
SC+Scope+Smartgun+ExcellentQuality+COCAIN(no headshot): Chance to hit 94%, average damage per shot 6.1
SC+Scope+Smartgun+ExcellentQuality+COCAIN (headshot): Chance to hit 70%. Average damage per shot 9.18
As expected, high skill characters will be able to make more headdshots and thus do more damage. My minmaxed starting character with every advantage I could think of is ...almost able to match the autofire of a submachine gun. Of course this way the SP is a major factor, since its essentially eating up double its points in damage. Once a character's armor is Clothing Damaged, this becomes:
SC NHS: Average 5d6 17.5, 15.92 per shot
SC HS: Average 5d6*2 36, 10.5 PS
SC+Things NHS: 16.45
SC+Things HS: 31.5
Now that is a reasonable amount of damage! An assault rifle's full blast will do 28 ignoring miss chance, against low armored targets you're basically doing 10d6. Single shot long arms should be reasonably viable, once you get good enough with the weapon to pop some heads. At the very least you'll save money on bullets. For comparison:
13 DV, 11SP
18-4
SC AR: 0(9%), 2d6 (1%), 2d6*2(10%), 2d6*3(10%) 2d6*4(70%). Damage per attack 13.4
SC AR+COCAIN+EC+SG: 0(5%), 2d6(1%), 2d6*2(1%) 2d6*3(1%) 2d6*4 (92%). Damage per attack 15.9
SC SMG: 0(9%), 2d6(1%), 2d6*2(10%), 2d6*3(80%). Damage Per attack 8.58
SC SMG+Stuff: 0(5%), 2d6(1%), 2d6*2(1%) 2d6*3(93%). Damage per attack 9.57
13DV, 0SP
SC AR: Same chances, damage is 23.17
SCAR+ Things: Same chances, damage is 26.18
SC SMG: DPA 18.27
SC SMG+Things: DPA 19.74
Finally, explosives! Like I said, if they follow the "Hit or miss = I guess they never miss huh?" then they just do straight up damage. So they'll do more than their equivalent autofire when accuracy is taken into account.
SP11
Grenade: 10
Missile: 17
SP0:
Grenade: 21
Missile: 28
Now there is a chance to miss, if you're fighting a cyborg ninja who can dodge bullets. I'll use the 14 for their character, and a 7 for the attacker to represent someone who had a dump stat. You now have a 6% chance to actually hit them with your explosive (You roll a 8, they roll a 1, you roll a 9 they roll a 1 or 2, you roll a 10 they roll a 1, 2, 3, mostly ignoring crits that would probably not insubstantially increase your score). Now average damage is:
SP11:
Grenade: 0.6
Missile: 1.02
So don't forget to dodge those missiles kids!
OK, away from numbers and back to the book. Armor gets brought up again, noting is really new but the fluffy descriptions. I should probably point out here that since cover takes damage like its unarmored, most if it is going to get torn up by any sort of attack. Two average slugs are going to take out the HP of a concrete cover, so if everyone focuses fire on one dude they're going to be sitting ducks soon enough. This makes shields basically a one-attack blocker that doesn't work on explosives, if you bring enough and pair with an SMG you'd be a pretty effective tank (unless you get shot at twice before you can replace it). SP11 is cheap and has no penalty so everyone will use it. Metalgear is expensive and makes you almost act like you got hit by a flashbang while you're wearing it, but you'll be really hard to kill if you do.
After that is a mostly fluffy equipment list. Some of these things can do the same thing some cyberwear does, I'm not sure why you'd put a bug detector in your arm when you can just put it in your hand.
We FINALLY get what a cyrotank is. That special thing that only Medtechs can use, and have to put points towards. Cyropumps are emergency tools that put you in stasis so you stop making death checks, but they're fragile enough that you'll have to do it after the bad guys stop shooting at you. Basically keep you from dying, so they're useful if you happen to be dying. Cyrotank are healing pods that make you heal for double what you normally would. Usually its less quick than making the expensive medicines, but its faster than just waiting.
There are two Linear frames that raise your BOD like the cybearwear do, but don't raise your health and don't require a minimum BOD like the cyberwear. Mostly to make you stronk.
Smartglasses act like battle gloves, but for eyes, with two eye slots. Its better than getting cybereyes in most cases since you just have to buy one upgrade to count as "paired". Can act like either a scope or thermal scope, letting you do either of the tricks above.
Remember when I said light melee weapons where useless? Well I was right, but you can add a $500 biotoxin to them to make them do 3d6 ignore armor for 30 minutes. Add this to your bayonet and you can deal 21 damage bypassing armor thanks to your weapon attacking twice. Significant step up from the biogrenade, if you're a melee dude. Still useless if you arn't specked for stabbing people. Poison again does the same thing but less for cheaper.
A fashion page has the price per article of clothing for each fashion design, including jewelry, "mirroshades", contact lenses, and glasses. Tops out at $50,000 for high-end jewelry, presumably meant to be stolen and resold.
Street drugs and cyberwear get reprinted. Just about everything from Netrunner gets reprinted.
Lifestyle and Housing. Another thing that we talked about at the beginning of the game! If you don't pay for food you die. $100 a month for the cheapest meal plan, if you spend that you don't die. Upgrades to that are mostly for flavor (bah dum dish!), but mechanically allow you to get better food and go to entertainment without having to spend additional money passed what you already paid. Someone on a kibble diet can go to a World Class Restaurant, but they'd have to drop $500. Someone on a Real Food lifestyle could go to said restaurant once a month for free.
Housing more directly effects you stats. Sleep 6 hours or you get tired and -2 to E V E R Y T H I N G. If too many people are loaded into your sleeping space, -2 to to E V E R Y T H I N G. If you sleep on the streets -2 to E V E R Y T H I N G unless you pass a roll, sleep outside and its -2 to to everything unless you or someone else passes a roll.
Basically not living in a building sucks and is dangerous. Cube hotels are the cheapest you can stay at for no penalty, $500 a month. Up from that its mostly flavor, though the more expensive ones explicitly have more security giving the GM less of an excuse to take stuff from you than if you slept in an alleyway. The top ones also give you some wealthy contacts. There is a price to buy, if you want to own your own place instead of getting charged monthly for it. Then you can set up your laser grids and crushing floors. Corpo's starting house can comfortably fit 3 people without penalty. Starting cargo container can fit 2. One person is going to have to sleep on the floor or share a bed.
Next is a guide for making money. Jobs get paid by the danger level, per person, though the game notes that these are just "best case" guidelines.
As a reminder Fixes can get more money for jobs, so you can take on a dangerous job for $4,000 each with a Level 10 fixer. Not bad!
Second way is the "hustle". Basically a passive payment that you get if you do nothing for a week (like if your waiting for someone to heal, make an item, or do something else that takes a lot of time). Every class gets their own job list with a random payment based off of your rank (starting characters are at the top-end of the lowest rank). Tops out around 800 for a lucky roll for a high skill player, bottoms out at 0 for an unlucky roll in the lowest rank. Its probably enough to pay the food and housing bills, but if you're doing that you won't be able to get much extra equipment.
Last is selling, which is tied into buying and selling. You can buy items up to $100 without needing a fixer or night market. Higher than that, you do. It looks like you can buy it at the same price you can sell it for, so a patient fixer could make some cash by Haggling. Like I thought you can probably make a little money with a fixer/tech team, if you have enough dice to pass the checks and enough time to make an expensive item.
